Dust On Solar Panels Efficiency

What is solar panel efficiency.

Dust on solar panels efficiency.

If you live in a particularly arid region and heavy dust storms are a problem you might want to clean the panels off yourself. Dirty solar panels will see an average 3 5 production boost when cleaned. In a new study published in langmuir the researchers confirmed that modifying the surface properties of solar panels may greatly reduce the. One of the reasons for this is dirt.

Solar panel efficiency is a measure of how much sunlight that hits the surface area of a solar panel is converted into usable electricity. The findings show that the accumulation of airborne particles both in the shape of dust and anthropic pollution on solar cells can grind their output down by more than 25 in certain regions. After cleaning the study s solar panels saw a 50 percent jump in efficiency. Investigated effect of dust on pv performance as function of tilt.

Significant amounts of dirt and dust can also reduce efficiency. Most of the stuff caked on the panels was ordinary dirt and dust. For the most part solar panels are self cleaning. Solar panels take in sunlight and material on the panels surface converts sunlight to electrons which become electricity greg explains.

The obvious solution is to pay someone to clean those panels or get out there and clean them yourself. Dust effect on solar panel increase as the tilt angle of incident increases. In my opinion this is an insignificant loss when considering how dirty the solar panels were. A rain shower can reset your panel efficiency in just a few minutes.

Power loss rise from 23 in normal incident to 4 7 24 8 at 58 for radiometer bird dropping one of the issues in this study. Dirt accumulation soiling is accounted for by our design team when calculating solar production. The new technique removed 98 percent of dust particles. As it turns out solar energy itself is clean but the air between the sun and the panels is not.

Research demonstrated a decrease in energy collected and produced when panels were blocked by dirt dust and debris as much as 25 difference in some cases. So if a solar panel has an efficiency rating of 15 that means 15 of the sunlight that hits the solar panels will be converted into electricity. Anything that blocks out the sun will reduce the amount of energy your panels produce bushfire smoke and dust storms can cause elevated particle levels in the atmosphere.